Tim's Bits and Pieces: Literaturehttp://blog.timp.com.au
My personal blog, covering many random topicsMon, 11 Jan 2016 00:21:36 +0200Mon, 11 Jan 2016 00:21:36 +0200http://23.fi/kukkaisvoima/enHarvard Classics 7 & 8: Christianity and the Theatre
http://blog.timp.com.au/harvard_classics_7_8%3A2016-01-11%3ALiterature%2CHarvardClassics%2CPhilosophy%2CReligion
http://blog.timp.com.au/harvard_classics_7_8%3A2016-01-11%3ALiterature%2CHarvardClassics%2CPhilosophy%2CReligion#commentsMon, 11 Jan 2016 00:21:36 +0200TimPLiteratureHarvardClassicsPhilosophyReligionhttp://blog.timp.com.au/harvard_classics_7_8%3A2016-01-11%3ALiterature%2CHarvardClassics%2CPhilosophy%2CReligion/At this rate I should be finishing the Harvard Classics in around 2026. Oh
[...]]]>At this rate I should be finishing the Harvard Classics in around 2026. Oh
well, on to the latest update.

Volume 7 is The Confessions of St. Augustine and The Imitation of Christ
by Thomas a Kempis, both of which I acquired in hard copy.

The Confessions is pretty much what you'd expect; it's the story of St.
Augustine's life from his birth to shortly after his conversion from
Manichaesm into Christianity, as well as a couple of of bonus chapters on the
subject of Creation and Genesis.

I used a relatively old translation by E. B. Pusey, which was somewhat dry
and tiring to read unfortunately, but it was still well worth reading. At some
point I think I'll try to track down The City of God and read that as
well.

The Imitation of Christ is essentially a series of notes on how to live for
young monastics. Many parts of it are still applicable to non-monastics, but
that was the intended audience of Brother Thomas, and it shows through on
occasion.

I used the fairly modern translation by William C. Creasy, which I think
may have been a mistake. He favoured a very simplified style of language,
which suffered the failing of many "simply" translations of complex works:
it's often rather ugly, and reading ugly prose is tiring in it's own way.

As well as that according to his introduction he deliberately set out to
translate it in a manner compatible with modern post-Vatican II Catholic
theology; he claimed in the Introduction that he only did so to the extent
necessary to make up for the modern lack of understanding of the context to
which Brother Thomas would have been writing, but I as a reader am left not
knowing what he might have changed.

He gives this example in the introduction of how he changed the translation
of one particular sentence. Early in the book Brother Thomas says "This is the
highest wisdom: through contempt of the world to aspire to the kingdom of
heaven." which apparently and "informed reader" would understand as (and
Creasy translates as) "This is the highest wisdom: to see the world as it
truly is, fallen and fleeting; to love the world not for its own sake, but for
God's; and to direct all your effort toward achieving the kingdom of
heaven."

This may be a reasonable opinion as to what an "informed reader" would get
out of that passage, but it is just Creasy's opinion. Essentially we're
viewing the work through the lens of Creasy's personal theology and
understanding of medieval philosophy.

Moving on from the questions about the translation, I found Book 4: The
Book of the Sacrament the most interesting. It showed a different, and far more
serious attitude towards communion than I am used to from the more easy-going
Protestantism I grew up with. And an attitude I find myself starting to move
towards more and more.

Volume 8 is various ancient Greek plays. I modified the list a little
based on what I had print copies of, but I ended up reading:

Seven against Thebes by Aeschylus; I forget which translation

Hecabe, Electra, and Heracles by Euripides and translated by Philip
Vellacott, which I had in hard-copy

The Acharnians, The Clouds, and Lysistrata by Aristophanes and translated
by Alan H. Sommerstein, also in hard-copy

Seven against Thebes was the dullest of the plays, and covered some of the
same events as the Oedipus Trilogy. It appears that I didn't even keep a copy
of the ebook. It probably was not the best choice for a singly play of
Aeschylus, but it's what I ended up with.

The tragedies of Euripides where a step up, but really there's not much to
say about them. They where entertaining, and worth reading for the window into
a different world, and different world-view they offer though.

The Oedipus Trilogy, AKA the Theban Plays, is actually three unrelated
plays by the same playwright (Oedipus the King, Oedipus at Colonus, and
Antigone), which where not intended as a trilogy, but are often combined since
they deal with the same characters, and the later two are very definitely
dealing with the carry-on effects of the first. I'd say these where my
favourite of the Greek theatre that I have read, and Antigone is probably my
favourite of the three. If you're only going to read a little bit of Greek
theatre go with these ones.

The Comedies of Aristophanes I didn't like as much as the tragedies,
interestingly my favourite was The Clouds, which is the most tragic of the
three.

The most interesting observation to come out of these was how much of what
would be considered gross-out humour in modern times they had. Fart-jokes,
poop-jokes, and sex-jokes all abound; Lysistrata has two groups of old folk
(one of men and one of women) have a battle-of-the-sexes in song, in which
their genitalia feature heavily, any stage directions in the plays are
apparently guesses from modern scholars, but I'm pretty sure it's generally
accepted that at least the old men strip off during the song, perhaps the old
women as well.

My dislike of such humour quite probably contributed to my poor opinion of
these plays, so people who like that sort of humour may find them more
entertaining.

Good grief, Mr. Emerson's essays are boring. They seem to essentially cover
the basic doctrines of his pseudo-religion, which consists of pantheism and
reincarnation. I can't give the complete details, but nothing in the first
third motivated me to look into it in any more depth. Eventually I decided
that if I've finished a quarter of the work and don't want to read the rest I
can skip ahead. English Traits on the other hand is quite interesting, it
presents a view of England of the early 19th century which is worth reading.

Burns' Poems aren't too bad, but they suffer from being in the Scots
dialect, and having a lot of them in the work, far too many to read in one go,
so I also only read around a third of it. I may return to some of his poetry
in future, but for now I'm moving on.

]]>http://blog.timp.com.au/harvard_classics_5_6%3A2015-05-13%3ALiterature%2CHarvardClassics%2CPhilosophy%2CPoetry/feed/Harvard Classics Volume 4 - The Lost and The Regained
http://blog.timp.com.au/harvard_classics_4%3A2014-09-09%3ALiterature%2CHarvardClassics%2CReligion%2CPoetry
http://blog.timp.com.au/harvard_classics_4%3A2014-09-09%3ALiterature%2CHarvardClassics%2CReligion%2CPoetry#commentsTue, 09 Sep 2014 23:03:54 +0200TimPLiteratureHarvardClassicsReligionPoetryhttp://blog.timp.com.au/harvard_classics_4%3A2014-09-09%3ALiterature%2CHarvardClassics%2CReligion%2CPoetry/Yep, I'm still reading the Harvard Classics, even if I'm reading them
[...]]]>Yep, I'm still reading the Harvard Classics, even if I'm reading them
slowly.

The fourth volume of the Harvard Classics consists of the collected poetry
of Milton. I read this in three separate volumes: Minor Poems (I commend this
edition due to it's extensive and well linked footnotes), Paradise Lost, and Paradise Regained.

There's not much to say about these; having read them I can see why Milton
is considered to be one of the greatest English authors of all time, even if
for myself I lack the taste for poetry and knowledge of the many allusions he
makes to truly appreciate them to their full.

I did appreciate seeing a different view on the common Bible stories that
Milton was retelling though; both the fact that he essentially interpreted
the regaining of Paradise to have happened during Jesus' 40 days in the
wilderness rather than on the cross, and that his interpretation of the first
sin, and the relationship to Adam, Eve, and authority in inter-sexual
relationships was very foreign to most modern eyes.

We're now moving on to Emerson; I've actually started already, and so far
I'm not a fan of the Essays (though I'll reserve judgement until I've read a
bit more), but English Traits sounds rather interesting.

]]>http://blog.timp.com.au/harvard_classics_4%3A2014-09-09%3ALiterature%2CHarvardClassics%2CReligion%2CPoetry/feed/Harvard Classics Volume 3 - Essays, Censorship, and the Religion of Doctors
http://blog.timp.com.au/harvard_classics_3%3A2014-04-03%3ALiterature%2CHarvardClassics%2CPhilosophy%2CPolitics
http://blog.timp.com.au/harvard_classics_3%3A2014-04-03%3ALiterature%2CHarvardClassics%2CPhilosophy%2CPolitics#commentsThu, 03 Apr 2014 23:53:59 +0200TimPLiteratureHarvardClassicsPhilosophyPoliticshttp://blog.timp.com.au/harvard_classics_3%3A2014-04-03%3ALiterature%2CHarvardClassics%2CPhilosophy%2CPolitics/Well, this took a while. I blame the Romans. :-)
[...]]]>Well, this took a while. I blame the Romans. :-)

I have an old Everyman's Library edition of Milton's prose, so I read the
two works of Milton from that. Areopagitica is available from both
Gutenberg and the University of Adelaide, but neither seem to have Of
Education, so you might need to look elsewhere for it.

First up: Why do I blame the Romans? Both Bacon and Browne often quote
Latin phrases without giving translations, so I got distracted by starting to
learn Latin. I've at least got to the point where I can figure out the number
and part of speech of most words, but I'm still very definitely just beginning
to learn the language. I'll probably keep it up as I go along.

The order of these three works doesn't really matter all that much, and I'd
recommend The Essays as the most interesting single work. Some of them are
really only relevant to wealthy medieval Britons (Of Gardens for example), but
they are all short, and they give you a bit of a picture of at least that part of
the medieval culture.

Areopagitica is essentially an open letter to the English Parliament on the
subject of censorship of books, on the ground that it (censorship) is
insulting, and essentially useless since false heresies and cults more often
spring up due to teaching in person rather than in writing.

I did notice a couple of things that amused in it that should be noted:

Firstly, Milton spends a lot of effort on praising the English Parliament in
the introduction to his Tractate; If any modern citizen spent so long
flattering the Parliament before getting to the point his audience would
probably stop reading before he got to the point.

Secondly, when he was talking about the history of censorship he brought up
Athens (the homes of many of the greatest western philosophers) as an example
of a society that didn't censor their residents, except in matters of libel
and atheism. The interesting matter is not so much that the Athenians censored
atheists, but that it was seen as quite reasonable: deviants, heretics, and
pagans sure, but atheists are just too much.

This censorship of atheism in Athens is particularly interesting in light
of the fact that some Atheists try to claim Socrates as an Atheist, or at
least a forefather to them, but turning the young away from the gods was the
crime for which he was charged, and if you remember The Apology from the last
volume, you'll know that he vehemently denied any part in it.

Anyhow next on our agenda is Milton's poetry.

]]>http://blog.timp.com.au/harvard_classics_3%3A2014-04-03%3ALiterature%2CHarvardClassics%2CPhilosophy%2CPolitics/feed/Harvard Classics Volume 2 - Dialogs, Sayings, and Meditations
http://blog.timp.com.au/harvard_classics_2%3A2013-12-04%3ALiterature%2CHarvardClassics%2CPhilosophy%2CPolitics
http://blog.timp.com.au/harvard_classics_2%3A2013-12-04%3ALiterature%2CHarvardClassics%2CPhilosophy%2CPolitics#commentsWed, 04 Dec 2013 23:03:54 +0200TimPLiteratureHarvardClassicsPhilosophyPoliticshttp://blog.timp.com.au/harvard_classics_2%3A2013-12-04%3ALiterature%2CHarvardClassics%2CPhilosophy%2CPolitics/A little while before NaNoWriMo started I decided to start reading through
[...]]]>A little while before NaNoWriMo started I decided to start reading through
the Harvard
Classics/Five-foot Bookshelf. I figure I'll give myself the basics of an
old-school liberal arts education. Since Volume 1 is rather American focused I
decided to skip it and go straight to Volume 2. I ended up slowing down a lot
due to NaNoWriMo, but I got the last part of Volume 2 done on Monday.

If you are going to read these I recommend reading them in the order listed
above. The three Dialogs of Plato form a narration of Socrates' trial and
execution, while Epictetus refers back to Socrates, and Marcus Aurelius refers
back to both Socrates and Epictetus. All the works could probably be read alone,
though the dialogs are short, so you might as well read all three, but that's
the preferable ordering (and the order given by the Harvard Classics as well I
believe).

Also the editions of the Dialogs I mentioned above all have a rather
long winded summary/introduction by the translator, which explains what the
arguments are in a slightly abbreviated (they are still nearly as long as the
actual dialogs) and simplified form. I didn't end up reading this for Phaedo,
but you might want to read them if you have trouble with the main works, and the
first few paragraphs of them give a bit of background info which is worth
reading regardless.

Crito by Plato is probably the most interesting of all the works, and the
shortest. It's a discussion about how Socrates believes (or Plato wants to
portray him as believing) that he is obligated to his country to obey it's laws
even when he disagrees with them (in this case they are putting him to death, so
you know he takes it seriously) due to the benefits he received from the state
earlier in life, and due to the fact that he had by choice spent almost all his
life, even more so than usual for his countrymen, in Athens, which meant that he
had essentially agreed that the laws of the land where good. Therefore he was
obligated to obey the laws whether he now agreed with them or not.

I disagree with with his conclusion, afterall as he said in the same dialog,
'[W]hy ... should we care about the opinion of the many?', and Athens at this
point was a form of democracy, which means it's laws are simply the opinions of
the many. Sometimes the majority is right, sometimes wrong.

That's not to say that some of his other secondary reasons (that escape would
put his friends and family at odds with the government; that he was an old man
anyhow; that he would need to leave Athens, and had no interest in doing so)
where not potentially valid reasons on their own, but the central reason does
not convince me. Regardless I found this the most interesting work, since it
got me thinking about the argument it presented.

If you where only going to read one of the works listed I would recommend
this one, though the other two dialogs would be helpful as well, since as I
mentioned above they form a narration of Socrates' death, and Phaedo has some
interesting arguments about immortality as well.

Of the two Stoics (Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius are both important members
of the Stoic school of philosophy), I preferred Epictetus. Marcus Aurelius was
repetitive, both of himself and of Epictetus. I'm sure for someone who really
wanted to study Stoic philosophy he would be quite interesting, but I found him
somewhat boring and long winded, though with a few interesting bits and
pieces.

I think I might have done better to read some of the Epicurean school of
philosophy instead of Marcus Aurelius. Still it was interesting to compare and
contrast two individuals on opposite ends of the social and wealth scale;
Epictetus was a slave, and Marcus Aurelius was an Emperor, yet they both had
essentially the same opinions about ambition, and being content with whatever
happens.

One interesting thing I noted was that there was no arguments about
"fairness" recorded from either. Now of course, I wouldn't expect Stoics to
complain about the universe being unfair, and Stoics weren't the majority in
the communities at the time. But what I noticed, particularly in Epictetus, who
is often responding to other peoples arguments or requests for advice, was that
they didn't seem to be arguing against the idea that the universe, or the gods,
or fate is unfair to make some people poor and others rich. They where rather
arguing against ambition and discontentment.

I can't imagine a modern Stoic doing much except arguing against the idea
that the universe should be fair, and that it's bad that it isn't. Epictetus would
say things like why would you obsess about being successful? don't you
know that the rich have their own burdens, and the universe specifically
designed you for your place in it?, but I would have expected
to read things like why worry about whether it is fair for you or
others to be poor? don't you know that the rich have their own burdens, and the
universe specifically designs each person for their place in
it? from a Stoic writing for modern audiences.

It may be nothing, perhaps I'm just noticing a difference in wording rather
than an actual difference in thought, but it makes me wonder if perhaps our
modern obsession with "Fairness", which we often assume is an innate feature of
the human psyche, may rather be a cultural artifact. (perhaps related to
Marxism?)

Anyhow, if you want to shorten this volume, my recommendation would be to
skip The Meditations, which makes up about 50% of the whole volume, and doesn't add
that much new to Epictetus.

Onwards to Volume 3: Bacon, Milton, and Browne, or the English philosophy of
the 16th and 17th centuries.

Note: If you want to read through the Harvard Classics yourself, it's
entirely Public Domain now, and Project Gutenberg has a "bookshelf"
for it (though I'm using a lot of ebooks from eBooks@Adelaide instead), and
MobileRead has each volume
available as a single file download, which I'll probably use for a couple of
volumes that aren't suited to being downloaded as individual ebooks.

]]>http://blog.timp.com.au/harvard_classics_2%3A2013-12-04%3ALiterature%2CHarvardClassics%2CPhilosophy%2CPolitics/feed/Armarium Magnus
http://blog.timp.com.au/armarium_magnus%3A2011-01-25%3ALinkage%2CLiterature%2CReligion
http://blog.timp.com.au/armarium_magnus%3A2011-01-25%3ALinkage%2CLiterature%2CReligion#commentsTue, 25 Jan 2011 23:03:53 +0200TimPLinkageLiteratureReligionhttp://blog.timp.com.au/armarium_magnus%3A2011-01-25%3ALinkage%2CLiterature%2CReligion/I've mentioned I've mentioned Tim O'Neill's
blog here before, but he hadn't posted since quite some time. (he's even
worse than me at the whole regular posts things; though his posts are longer and
far more interesting) Despite this I've still checked back there
every now and again incase he starts posting again, and now
he has. As with all of his reviews it's full of interesting historic
information; I strongly recommend reading it.
]]>http://blog.timp.com.au/armarium_magnus%3A2011-01-25%3ALinkage%2CLiterature%2CReligion/feed/Rousseau's The Social Contract
http://blog.timp.com.au/rousseaus_the_social_contract%3A2010-12-19%3AJurisprudence%2CLiterature%2CPhilosophy%2CPolitics
http://blog.timp.com.au/rousseaus_the_social_contract%3A2010-12-19%3AJurisprudence%2CLiterature%2CPhilosophy%2CPolitics#commentsSun, 19 Dec 2010 23:03:54 +0200TimPJurisprudenceLiteraturePhilosophyPoliticshttp://blog.timp.com.au/rousseaus_the_social_contract%3A2010-12-19%3AJurisprudence%2CLiterature%2CPhilosophy%2CPolitics/As I mentioned earlier I've recently read through As I mentioned earlier I've recently read through Rousseau's The Social
Contract (not that translation though, mine was by Lowell Blair
in the 1970's), and I'll expand on my initial review ("Wrong, but in interesting
ways") here.

The Social Compact

The most important part of The Social Contract is Chapter VI of
the first book, since this chapter is where Rousseau explains the conditions of
the "Social Compact" itself, at least as he sees it. All the previous chapters
build up to this chapter and all the following chapters build upon it. If the
arguments presented in this chapter are in error the book as a whole collapses
and becomes purely an interesting intellectual curiosity (there are some
sections that still maintain some value in isolation). Unfortunately I would
argue that Rousseau's understanding, as expressed in this chapter, is in error,
and such severe error as to be un-salvageable.

First let us examine Rosseau's own words (emphasis mine):

The clauses of this contract are so determined by the nature of the act
that the slightest modification would make them vain and ineffective; so
that, although they have perhaps never been formally set forth, they are
everywhere the same and everywhere tacitly admitted and recognised, until,
on the violation of the social compact, each regains his original rights and
resumes his natural liberty, while losing the conventional liberty in favour
of which he renounced it.

These clauses, properly understood, may be reduced to one - the total
alienation of each associate, together with all his rights, to the whole
community; for, in the first place, as each gives himself absolutely, the
conditions are the same for all; and, this being so, no one has any interest
in making them burdensome to others.

And as to why this must be so:

... if the individuals retained certain rights, as there would be no
common superior to decide between them and the public, each, being on one
point his own judge, would ask to be so on all; the state of nature would
thus continue, and the association would necessarily become inoperative or
tyrannical.

What man would give every part of himself to society; not just his body and
his efforts, but even his opinions, since Rosseau claims that men judging
between themselves and society would cause the contract to become inoperative?
It seems that only an absurdly trusting man would join such an association
willingly and that most men would only join such such an association by force.
As Rousseau himself argues earlier (in Chapter III) force does not make
right, with the result that such a contract, created by force, would be
invalid.

I doubt that men sufficiently trusting and naive to join such an association
exist even in small numbers, let alone the numbers necessary to form a society,
but for the sake of argument let us assume that they do. Would not at some point
these people judge the actions of society (it does not seem to matter whether
they judge them as right or wrong in Rousseau's opinion), or at least their
descendants? At which point society either ceases to exist or reverts to
tyranny.

It seems extraordinarily unlikely that such a society would come into existence
or last for any length of time if it did. Rousseau's writings on how to best
structure society are consequently irrelevant to any real society, and are only
of interest as a thought experiment.

The Marks of a Good Government

As another example in a less important way Rousseau also errs in his
discussion of the best way to measure the whether a government is good or
ill:

But if it is asked by what sign we may know that a given people is well
or ill governed, that is another matter, and the question, being one of
fact, admits of an answer.

...

For my part, I am continually astonished that a mark so simple is not
recognised, or that men are of so bad faith as not to admit it. What is the
end of political association? The preservation and prosperity of its
members. And what is the surest mark of their preservation and prosperity?
Their numbers and population. Seek then nowhere else this mark that is in
dispute. The rest being equal, the government under which, without external
aids, without naturalisation or colonies, the citizens increase and multiply
most, is beyond question the best. The government under which a people wanes
and diminishes is the worst. Calculators, it is left for you to count, to
measure, to compare.

This is obviously absurd. For example using the birth and death rates listed
on Wikipedia the best government in the world is Mali and the worst is Ukraine,
China is somewhat worse than Australia or the US (which are about the same), but
significantly better than Canada, and Mexico is significantly better than
the US, even though huge numbers of Mexicans risk their lives every year to try
to get from Mexico to the US. While it probably made a bit more sense in the
time's prior to birth-control, it still doesn't work. A government could simple
require each woman who wasn't currently pregnant or nursing a child to visit
the local "love shack" once a week. This could easily double the actual birth
rate of a nation, yet I'm sure most people would agree that it would actually
make the government worse.

Slavery and Taxes

As I mentioned earlier, though the central premise of this work is nonsense,
there are some individual chapters that are still of some small value in
isolation. Chapters
III and IV of the first book are of some value as arguments
against slavery and "might makes right", though Rousseau does make several
assumptions that I disagree with (in fairness I suspect he may have covered
these more in his Discourse on Inequality which was written earlier than
The Social Contract, but which I haven't read). Another section that stands out is the first part
of Chapter XV of
the third book, where he states that he "... hold[s] enforced labour to be less
opposed to liberty than taxes." I don't know if I agree with him on this, but I
do know that if we where forced to work one day out of two for the Government
our taxation burden would be much more obvious, and I suspect more likely to be
opposed.

Conclusion

Rousseau's Social Contract is really only of use as an intellectual
curiosity. Due to his fundamental misunderstanding of human society any
attempt to structure a government based on his recommendations would be a
mistake, quite probably a tragic mistake. If you're reading it to expand your
intellectual horizons, as I was, you may gain something (particularly from the
first book), but if you want to improve your knowledge of good government you
will be sadly disappointed.

]]>http://blog.timp.com.au/rousseaus_the_social_contract%3A2010-12-19%3AJurisprudence%2CLiterature%2CPhilosophy%2CPolitics/feed/The Stupidest Thing on the Internet Ever
http://blog.timp.com.au/the_stupidest_thing_on_the_internet_ever%3A2010-08-12%3AHumour%2CLinkage%2CLiterature%2CReligion
http://blog.timp.com.au/the_stupidest_thing_on_the_internet_ever%3A2010-08-12%3AHumour%2CLinkage%2CLiterature%2CReligion#commentsThu, 12 Aug 2010 23:03:54 +0200TimPHumourLinkageLiteratureReligionhttp://blog.timp.com.au/the_stupidest_thing_on_the_internet_ever%3A2010-08-12%3AHumour%2CLinkage%2CLiterature%2CReligion/A review A review God's
Philosophers: How the Medieval World Laid the Foundations of Modern
Science. I strongly recommend reading this post; It's both entertaining
and educational. Note the title of this post is not a reference to Author
himself, but rather something he talks about in his post (about a third of the
way down).

I also recommend the review of God's Battalions: The Case for the Crusades
by the same author. It was also an eye opener, but I was a bit more
uncomfortable reading it; mostly because I actually agreed [Past tense is
intentional] with the Author of the book he was reviewing.

]]>http://blog.timp.com.au/the_stupidest_thing_on_the_internet_ever%3A2010-08-12%3AHumour%2CLinkage%2CLiterature%2CReligion/feed/The Lion's Mane
http://blog.timp.com.au/the_lions_mane%3A2010-02-07%3ALiterature%2COddities
http://blog.timp.com.au/the_lions_mane%3A2010-02-07%3ALiterature%2COddities#commentsSun, 07 Feb 2010 23:03:54 +0200TimPLiteratureOdditieshttp://blog.timp.com.au/the_lions_mane%3A2010-02-07%3ALiterature%2COddities/Just an interesting example of cultural differences I observed while reading
[...]]]>Just an interesting example of cultural differences I observed while reading
The
Lion's Mane, a Sherlock Holmes story. Basically the story goes that a
man stumbles of the beach beside a lagoon in obvious agony, mumbles something
about a "lion's mane", and then dies. When the body is examined it reveals a
pattern of red welts across his back, which are described as similar to the
wounds from a whip of some sort.

My immediate thought is "Poor man, from what I understand being stung to
death by a jellyfish is a pretty painful way to go. Best remove it from the
lagoon before someone else gets stung." Sherlock Holmes takes 15 or 16
pages and over a week to come to the same conclusion.